Associated Press
Retiring Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio)
Rep. Steven LaTourette (R) of Ohio is wrapping up his 18-year career, and as he heads for the exits, the congressman -- a Republican moderate by 2012 standards -- is sharing some interesting insights as he reflects on what's become of Capitol Hill.
For example, LaTourette chatted with Dave Weigel about his party's confusion about earmarks, his caucus' unfortunate preoccupation with abortion votes, and the mistaken impeachment crusade against President Clinton in 1998. But this was the quote that stood out for me:
"Between 1996 and 1998 you get welfare reform, you kick out a major highway bill. You get a lot of good work done, and it was because Bill Clinton was willing to triangulate the Democrats. He'd actually reach out and talk to us. This president doesn't work with us at all."
I hear this quite a bit from Republicans: President Obama just hasn't worked hard enough to reach out to, and work with, his GOP rivals in Congress. And every time I come across the argument, I desperately want Republicans to explain what in the world they're talking about.
Let's say it's 2009, you're President Obama, you ran on a platform of bringing people together, and you're serious about following through on this commitment. What would you do? Maybe you'd appoint Republicans to key positions in your administration; you'd reach out for regular face-to-face meetings with Republican lawmakers; and you'd incorporate Republican ideas into your proposals on health care, foreign policy, energy, immigration, and education.
Except, Obama did all of those things. It didn't work.
Indeed, it's been largely forgotten, but in November 2008, shortly after the election, the Weekly Standard ran a piece with a list of steps Obama could take to prove that he's serious about bipartisan governing. The president did virtually everything on the list.
"This president doesn't work with us at all"? As best as I can tell, Obama's at least tried. I'm not sure anyone can credibly say the same about LaTourette's fellow Republicans.
Leave a Comment:
who the hell does this mofo think he's fooling.
the GOP met
THE NIGHT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S INAUGURATION
and decided that they would commit ECONOMIC TREASON AGAINST THIS COUNTRY
in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
he can go somewhere and sit the 'f' down with this "the President didn't reach out to us' nonsense.
What rikyah said. Duh.
Same.
Negotiate with a blah?
Shirley, you jest!
Just remember they aren't talking to the people here but the people who live in the bubble. This is just another thing designed to confirm their separate reality and comfort them in the face of the Socialist menace.
Republican officials honestly don't care if the left gets irritated by stuff like this because then they just point to it as more evidence that they are telling the "Truth".
Tell people what they want or at least expect to hear and they will always listen. Remember this ol' chestnut
The best response to this sort of wingnut bullshhit is a punch in their phu king mouth.
This sort of garbage is alternate-reality meme-generating for consumption by Useful Idiot Nation so that when liberals/progressives/Democrats take to explaining the reality of the situation these poor, despicable, deluded souls already have a built-in defense against the reality intrusion.
The best response? Explain it to them like Steve did in his post, turn around and walk away. Do not argue with them. Treat their undeserved certainty with complete contempt.
Given that Clinton basically Sold Out The Democratic Party between 1996 and 1998 (the years this idiot thinks were "good ones") while trying to avoid impeachment for his blowjobs (not to mention 1994 and NAFTA, 1993 and Don't Ask/Don't Tell, etc., etc.), I don't think the example of his "bipartisanship" is much of anything we want repeated. Everyone else can think that scumbag was/is a great Democrat, but whatever kind of "great" he was, "Democrat" wasn't it. Liar from 1967 onward (his draft dodger scam) pretty much fills the bill though. Since I only ever vote for Democrats, I am glad I didn't vote for that "cracking trader" twice.
I take it that Rep LaTourette has a job with one of the teapub machines out there. Maybe at a SuperPac or with the Kochs or Rove or Grover or Faux. Otherwise, why bother with the BS?
To expand on rikyrah..
Bipartisan, hell.
Inauguration night, January 20, 2009, newly-elected President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle celebrated by partying and dancing at various balls.
That same inauguration evening, top Republican lawmakers and strategists were spending four hours conjuring up ways to submarine his presidency and , at a private dinner in a high-end Washington D.C. restaurant,.
They plotted ways to not just win back political power, pledging to stick together in united, lockstep opposition to his agenda, whatever that agenda might be, putting the brakes on any and all of Obama's plans to make a better future for Americans.
That dinner provides an insight to how quickly the Republicans began their efforts to poison the political climate, and the public’s impression of their new President.
According to the guest list that night just over 15 people attended. Included – all Republicans – were House Representatives Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra and Dan Lungren. Plus Senators Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign and Bob Corker. Plus Newt Gingrich, and Frank Luntz, Republican strategist.
That strategy: "Show united and unyielding opposition to all the president’s economic policies. Challenge every single bill and every single campaign. Begin attacking Democrats in the media. Win the House in 2010. Attack Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.”
This was on the first day of Obama’s Presidency. It still hasn’t stopped.
Also this... Rep. LaToulette makes this incredibly inane remark.
"This president doesn't work with us at all."
“From a Oct 24, 2011 Washington Post article.
“There’s simply no longer any doubt Senate Republicans are denying Obama support for his policies to damage him politically.”
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s states “Americans will dismiss the very idea that Republicans could want Obama to fail as preposterous.
Republicans very well may benefit politically in the long run from blocking Obama jobs policies because voters may not know or care why his policies aren’t getting through.
They may not believe that Republicans are blocking his jobs policies in order to make Obama look ineffective so as to deny him a second term, even though McConnell has basically admitted as much on the record.”
As McConnell suggested on CNN, “who could possibly believe something so outlandish?”
@bdirms - "According to the guest list that night just over 15 people attended. Included – all Republicans – were House Representatives Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra and Dan Lungren. Plus Senators Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign and Bob Corker. Plus Newt Gingrich, and Frank Luntz, Republican strategist."
Nice to look back and see that Ryan lost the election along with Romney; DeMint, Kyl, Lungren, and Ensign are or will be no longer in office in 2012; Gingrich is a loser, hack has-been bloviator with no further juice in the GOP and Frank Luntz's efficacy as a strategist is in the toilet -- Obama voters didn't buy into his racist dog-whistle memes. 50% fail or irrelevance for these traitors ain't bad. Get rid of the rest of whoever is up for election in 2014.
The GOP spent 8 years villifying Clinton and now this joker is pining for those good old days?
Gimme a break.
Makes me drool at the prospect of Clinton campaigning in 2016.
Shrub had me missing Reagan ... Then I stopped and thought about it.
I never got to the point of pining. Probably because I'm unable to convince myself of my own BS.
I guess politics is not in my future.
.
.
These conservatives desperately hang onto their illusions, otherwise they'd be forced to confront some very nasty facts about being complicit in the harm they and their party perpetuate on this country in the name of God.
Facing facts is not a Republican strong suit, and so they rot from the inside out.
@NeedMore Coffee - "Facing facts is not a Republican strong suit ..."??? By my observations facing facts is considered to be treasonous to the GOP. A fact-facer would be drummed out of the GOP, called a RINO ("would you want your daughter/son to marry a RINO?"), and "primaried" by someone else so right wing they are falling off the planet (because they belong to the flat earth society) and so mendacious that their noses are so long, they trip over them and they wear makeup on their lower bodies to cover up the charcoal marks from pants on fire.
"It's Obama's fault" is the Congressional Republican equivalent of "the dog ate my homework." It is nothing more than an effort to pin the blame for their failure to do their work on somebody else. The excuse is getting a little old.
Shouting out "You Lie!" at the President, and openly stating their mission was to make Obama fail are not exactly setting positive tones for conversation. I don't think most of America would agree with LaTourette. Obama has been fair and accomodating... suck it up, Repubs.
Clinton was white. He was allowed to talk to you.
Dear Rep. LaTourette. Where was all this love for President Clinton when you personally voted FOR impeaching him on 3 of the articles of impeachment. Don't pee on my foot and tell me it's rain.
@percysowner -- Tell ex-Rep. LaTourette "don't pee down my neck and tell me it's trickle-down prosperity."
Wonderful! Another GOP retiree opens his mouth, only to spew forth the tired, old, racist BS about President Obama. How utterly ridiculous and embarrassing this kind of nonsense has become. What would it take for a local, semi-national, or national (even!) news story on this kind of lying to go public? How does truth compare to lies? We could then see some revealed truth as these idiotic charges are publicly debunked: so, print off this Benen entry, email it immediately to the MSM and to your local news outlets, send a copy to NPR's Diane Rehm, to BigBird at PBS, and especially to Bill Moyers. Make this a front-and-center topic for discussion this weekend as the House comes back on Sunday for more meaningless meandering towards the inevitable slide downward. Embarrass the hell out of the GOTP; reveal them for everyone--especially their home district voters--to see the duplicity and falseness of their 'representation.' They ain't got no pants! What do they have??
The GOP meets with the President and then IMMEDIATELY run to the microphones and says 'He's not serious'. They meet with the President and IMMEDIATELY run to the microphones and say 'He's not reaching out to us'. Funny, in a particular kind of way. The only way the President would be 'working with them' is to adopt Republican policies. When Obama went into Afghanistan the GOP 'praised him' but when they ran against him he 'didn't take their advice and screwed it all up!' C'mon. They are victims and blame Obama for EVERYTHING. NOW 'the President MUST come up with a plan' when it is CONGRESS that makes laws and passes them. What a crock.
Self-proclaimed victims...aka: political hypercondriacs.
He tried that, too. Remember how that turned out?
I think La Tourette is simply a liar and hasn't the balls to stand up to his supposed "fellow Republicans". There is nothing redeeming or decent about a man who goes out of his way to do so when the facts are so easy to find.
True, he might want to do some "consulting" for Big Oil after he retires.
The GOP really has severed every last connection with reality, hasn't it? It's really quite a sight to behold.
It would be funny if the consequences weren't so damn serious.
Not quite. They're still dead-on with the reality that the only threat to their continuing in office is being primaried from the right.
The GOP is totally delusional!!!
Lets remember the context: this is right now the most sane House Republican as far as their antics this month goes. LaTourrete actually prefers governing to ideaology. Imagine how the goombahs feel...
Just another Republican who thinks that "reaching out" means kissing his azz, probably because kissing the azz of power is all they know.
La Tourette would be a yes voting Republican on any deal, he is way done with the wackos.
We're running as fast as we can to the extreme right. It's your fault that you can't run fast enough to the right to catch and pass us.
If you were really interested in working with us, you'd move even farther to the right than we are, thus allowing you to move back towards us.
Paraphrasing Tom Friedman
Our deformed Congress – that’s become a forum for legalized bribery – is now truly holding us back. The increasing importance of Special Interest groups, SuperPACs and their money have greatly expanded the number of lobbyists which influence and clog decision-making.
In 1982, political scientist Mancur Olson, in “The Rise and Decline of Nations” warned that highly focused special-interest lobbys can choke the life out of a political system. “They will have an inherent advantage – over the broad majority fixated on the well-being of the country – unless that majority truly mobilizes against them.”
The Republicans are already a lost cause... they can't even function with a cohesive voice. Only the money shoveled to them from people and corporations instructing them to pass legislation specifically for them seems a motivating factor. Not the good of America or the American people... only their own greed and avarice seems to move them.
Democrats had the majority in the last election... It’s time to mobilize . Truly....